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Mr President, Miss Freud (our Honorary President), and colleagues: I think this is the first time that the Chairman of the Programme Committee has tried to convey to the Congress which they have planned, some of the thinking and the rationale behind the ultimate programme with which you are presented.
First, however, it gives me great pleasure, on behalf of all members of the Programme Committee and of the American Sub-Committee of the Programme Committee, to welcome you all to the 29th Congress of the International Psycho-Analytical Association. This honour would not, however, have fallen to me, but for the untimely death of my colleague and friend, Dr Wally Joffe, the original Chairman of the Committee, and I feel it is appropriate at the beginning of this Congress to let you know that the topic and shape of this Congress programme owe much to his creative and dynamic leadership of the Programme Committee during the first nine months of its existence, as well as to Dr Ed Weinshel and his colleagues in the Americas. Dr Green, my Co-Chairman, and I had the easier task of monitoring what had originally been arranged.
I will now share with you some of the thinking and the rationale behind the programme which has been worked out for this Congress.
Two guiding principles have played a major role in determining the Congress topics and the manner in which they will be arranged. In the first place, the Programme Committee wanted to ensure that the 29th Congress would be centred around vital issues which were topical and which played an essential role in every psychoanalyst's professional life. Secondly, it seemed essential to devise a forum in which it would be possible to facilitate a real exchange of views, not only between invited speakers but also between those who happen to be on the platform and all other Congress participants.
To meet our first criterion, the idea emerged of selecting topics which could be approached from different points of view, each of which was